


Plumeria Station

by Alice_h



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:36:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25669804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alice_h/pseuds/Alice_h
Summary: Catra explores options for escaping her new home
Relationships: Catra/Perfuma (She-Ra)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9





	Plumeria Station

**Author's Note:**

> One of the things that fascinates me is the weird oddities of this country's railway network. This little story features a station that has been "temporarily" closed for 15 years, and exists in a state of limbo between closed and open. Sounds unlikely? This is exactly what's happened to Barlaston and Wedgwood stations, of which Plumeria is based on the former.
> 
> Also, yes, "Frightstone", I know.

Plumeria was hardly the centre of the universe. It was supposedly a town, according to all the signage around but, at least to Catra, that seemed like wishful thinking. Ten minutes was all it had taken her to walk from one side of her new home to the other, and she’d counted less than a dozen shops, a small community centre and a village green. _Town_ green, to avoid angering the locals. There were a few people around, and they all seemed pretty friendly, but appeared to share the same delusion of grandeur as the rest of the place.

At least it would be easy enough to head back to the city: there was a level crossing and a railway station at one end of town, and she’d heard trains thunder through three or four times while she’d been walking. Altough Frightstone wasn’t really home any more, not after she’d been forced out of her home by a greedy developer who’d decided that bland luxury apartments were far more important than her little townhouse, Catra still had friends there – all of her friends were there, if she was honest. Moving to Plumeria seemed like an opportunity to get a little more peace in life, but all it had done so far was make her miss the bustle of a much larger settlement.

Deciding to check out her escape options, Catra walked along the small path towards the platform on the closest side. The station seemed quite well kept, the picket fence that edged the walkway having been painted recently, and hanging baskets attached to the brick shelter ahead that bloomed with colour. On the platform, a young woman with long blonde hair was knelt beside a planter, tending to the purple flowers which laid within. Catra assumed she worked for the railway company, though the pink, flowy summer dress she wore didn’t exactly scream ‘uniform’. It did suit her though, she couldn’t deny that.

“Hey,” Catra called out as she reached the top of the small ramp up to the platform. The woman glanced up at her, beaming a smile as she stood, then ran over to clasp Catra’s hand with her own. This was a little more friendly that the newcomer was anticipating, and she instinctively jerked her arms back, silently hating the fact that the one thing she noticed from that interaction was how soft this girl’s hands were.

The blonde woman either didn’t notice the scowl on her face, or didn’t care. Her smile stayed put, and her singsong voice seemed to complement it perfectly. Catra wasn’t sure quite what it was about her, but the flower girl was captivating, “Welcome to Plumeria station! I’m Perfuma, have you come to help out?”

“Uh, no… I just wanted to know how to get back to Frightstone. Are the trains often?”

Perfuma giggled, a high-pitched chorus of glee that both calmed and stoked the irritation rising in Catra. She’d asked a simple question and wanted a simple answer, not ridicule from a glorified florist.

“What? Is something funny?”

“Come, sit down,” Perfuma phrased it as an invitation, but the arm around Catra’s wrist pulling her into the shelter said otherwise. She sat awkwardly on the edge of the wooden bench which lined the little building, “Plumeria doesn’t get any trains.”

Catra rolled her eyes, having little patience for any fairy stories or local legends or whatever tall tale she was about to be spun, “Don’t, I’m not one of these gullible tourists who cares about spoo-oo-ky mysteries. We’re sat on a train station, it’s gotta be here for a reason.”

“That’s what we think too!” Perfuma gestured to a couple of framed pictures on the wall, in which half a dozen people could be seen posing around a flowerbed, with a wheelbarrow perched in front of them. Catra immediately spotted Perfuma in one, she was taller than everyone else and it only lent her more elegance, “Fifteen years ago, Network Etheria upgraded the line for faster running, and they temporarily closed this and Dryl stations.”

“So, what? They closed it instead?”

Perfuma laughed again, “Oh, Plumeria isn’t closed. It just doesn’t get any trains, we have buses though. Confusing I know, but that’s where we come in.”

“Who’s we?” Catra said with a pained look on her face, fearing she was about to get sucked into another story she didn’t much care for. How was it so hard just to travel to a big city?

“The Friends of Plumeria Station, of course!” she pointed to another picture which had a gaggle of people holding out a banner with the name on, “We’re looking after the station while it’s dormant, and working hard to make sure that we get reconnected to the outside world.”

“Great. Can you do that by next week? I want to go see some friends.”

Once more, Perfuma chuckled to herself. She seemed unrelentingly positive and completely unperturbed by, well, _everything._ Catra was sure that if a train had crashed in front of them, this girl would have smiled and said ‘Let’s go drag survivors from the wreckage and give them flowers’, she was that chilled. It was irritating, yet Catra couldn’t quite bring herself to be angry at the woman, Perfuma was too cheerful for that. She was a literal ray of sunshine to Catra’s dark clouds, and Catra wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

“With your help, I’m sure we can speed things up.”

“My…? No, no no no,” she protested. She’d come to Plumeria purely for a bit of peace and quiet, not to get involved in little community projects with weird, smiley, captivating people. Perfuma’s response was simply to gaze into her eyes, a little grin upon her face that knew she was going to break down the walls. And much as Catra hated it, she was right, “Alright, fine! But I’m not gonna be here every day or anything. And I don’t really like getting my hands all dirty, I… I’m not a spoilt princess or anything, I just hate getting crap under my nails. I can paint though, if you need that, and I guess I’m handy with a screwdriver and-”

Catra realised she was rambling on, totally unsure how she had gone from complete refusal to singing her own praises about DIY skills in the space of about ten seconds. She reminded herself that she was only doing this for her own benefit; it was purely so that it would be easier to get back to Frightstone in the future. Nothing to do with any community spirit, nothing to do with Perfuma’s insistence and definitely nothing to do with the fact that she was beautiful…

Oh. _That_ was why.

“Perfect!” the blonde woman clapped her hands in delight, “Happy to have you on board, uh… I’m so sorry, I never asked your name.”

“Catra.”

“Such a pretty name!” Catra was sure she was blushing when Perfuma said that, and she tried to surreptitiously hide it by bringing a hand up across her face while she continued, “Welcome to the Friends of Plumeria Station, Catra. You’ll enjoy it here, I promise you that.”


End file.
